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Dec 29th, 2019
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Are there any Eastern Catholics on this forum who live in or very close to Ft. Wayne, Indiana? We are moving there next week. There are no EC parishes in the city, alas: the closest one is the UGCC parish of St. Michael's in Mishawaka, about 90 minutes northwest of Ft. Wayne (and a very fine parish it sounds like, too, from what I've heard from people who were parishioners there some years ago).
There are, I've seen, three Orthodox parishes in town (OCA, Greek, Antiochene) and I hope to attend the first or third of them regularly for Vespers on Saturday and feasts. Does anyone on here know anything about any of these three?
Finally, are there any Eastern monasteries nearby? I've not been able to discover any...
Adam
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Welcome to the desert. 90 miles is not too bad-it is around 200 miles to the nearest greek catholic parish(Romanian, Aurora, IL.), and around 250 to the nearest ByzCath (Chicago). We live in Iowa.
How far is it to Indianopolis from Ft Wayne?
In Christ,
Adam
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St. Athanasius in Indianapolis. About 2 hours southwest of Fort Wayne. A tad bit far but might be doable once in awhile. http://r-fol.com/st.athanasius/
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Yes, I think Mishawaka is the nearest parish. Frs. Peter Galadza and Mychailo Kuzma were both former pastors there.
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Adam,
About 150 mi to St Michael's Melkite in Hammond
Many years,
Neil
"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
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67.6 miles to Mishawaka according to the mileage calculator.
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There used to be a mission in Fort Wayne in the 1980's which was attended from Mishawaka, as well as Grand Rapids was off and on in the 1970's and 1980's. It has been defunct for a long while. Father Peter Galadza attended there.
I am originally from St. Michael's in Mishawaka. Protopresbyter Thomas Dobrowalski is the pastor there. The parish is small with a very beautiful temple. You will like it.
I am one hundred percent certain that you will be welcomed with open arms! The congregation likes to sing very much!
Unfortunately I can't visit as often as I'd like being a cantor in Grand Rapids.
Stefan-Ivan
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AKEMMER, There are 2 Byzcath parishes in St. Louis. The BCA Mission and Assumption UGCC. And as it was written earlier there is a BCA parish, St. Athanasius in Indianapolis and we'd love to have you here once in a while. 
Last edited by Dr. Eric; 08/15/07 02:12 AM.
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Glory to Jesus Christ!
Adam,
One of my cantors and former choir director, Tim Woods, who is now studying for the diaconate, is originally from Fort Wayne,Indiana. You are joining the ranks of a number of others in the Midwest who have to travel several hours to the nearest Eastern Catholic or Orthodox Church. My parish is in the Chicago area and I have parishioners that come from Iowa and also three hours south of us in Illinois. What these people do is to try to stay connected to the nearest Eastern parish in whatever way they can. They will often make a point to attend the Eastern parish on Sunday about once a month or every six weeks, or whatever. In the meantime they are put on the parish bulletin mailing list and are also contacted through email, etc. This is certainly not ideal but it is the best that can be done given the sparseness of eastern parishes in the entire midwest region of the United States once you get west of north-central Ohio.
This is one of the reasons that in my evangelization work I continually propose the idea of redistributing resources and investing in areas that might be the up and coming areas of the US or at least areas that although small in Eastern Christian population might at the same time be "mighty" and yield things like vocations if there were some investment in these areas. Granted the "Greek Catholic" population thins out dramatically as we move westward across middle America, at the same time much of this region of America was left fallow in terms of being "cultivated" by eastern churches. I often find eastern Catholics who came out to the midwest regions of America a long time ago but their churches never followed. There was a sizeable Melkite parish in Omaha, Nebraska years ago. When it lost its pastor of long duration, there was no Melkite priest sent to replace him. The Latin Rite Diocese of Omaha very generously did what they could for the Melkite community over some years in the absence of their own priest. But the upshot is that this once mighty Melkite community in the Midwest virtually disappeared.
--Fr. Thomas J. Loya, STB., MA.
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Fr. Thomas, just to clarify, there are actually several Orthodox churches in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and more within a decent drive. You can locate Orthodox parishes at the website: www.OrthodoxyInAmerica.org [ orthodoxyinamerica.org]. Otherwise, you're right, there are certain areas where the nearest Byzantine Catholic church is quite a drive. Orthodox still have a ways to go in that area, too.
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Cross-jurisdictional assistance is also necessary out here in the "desert" of the West and Midwest where every particular Church is stretched very thin, and this should also be considered when discussing resources.
A recent combined effort is underway in Lincoln, Nebraska involving the Ukrainian Catholic parish of St. George and the Melkite mission there, both using the existing building of St. George's and working together. I'm sure there are other similar efforts across the country and Canada as well. Perhaps if a cooperative approach would have been pursued a bit more aggresively by both communities in Omaha something could have been worked out.
It is quite a challenge for clergy working in these areas, as Greek Catholic priests are already taking care of multiple parishes, and bi-ritual Latins who want to help also have their own immense parish workloads. I was administering five Ukrainian Catholic parishes and missions across Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas for several months without a priest until we could rearrange some pastoral resources (my weekends were mainly filled with driving as one might imagine). And I have recently been talking to some soldiers at Ft. Riley who want to start something there as well. Lots of potential, not much clergy.
Sorry to have waylayed your post, Adam - it still looks like Mishawaka is your closest parish. As a Ukrainian Catholic subdeacon you can certainly start putting out some feelers, talking to Latin parishes, etc. and see if there is some local interest. In Topeka we eventually were offered space in a Latin school that was not being used to set up the iconostas, altar, etc. so we would not have to take everything down and set it up every service.
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